1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates generally to methods for minimizing material waste when cutting complex magnet shapes.
2. Related Art
Magnets made from ceramic materials are quite brittle, resulting in a low mechanical strength. Because of this material property, special cutting tools are used when machining this particular class of magnets in order to prevent cracking or fracture of the magnets during the machining process. In many cases the cost of raw materials is quite high; therefore, any waste of material is highly undesirable. Diamond saws, which consist of diamond coated discs of roughly 0.3-0.4 millimeters in width are a common tool employed to make precision cuts into brittle, ceramic-based magnets. Unfortunately, conventional diamond saws are generally limited to creating straight cuts. Consequently, when a diamond saw is used to cut ceramic magnets non-linear surfaces are typically achieved by grinding away excess material off the surface of the magnet to create a curved surface. In many cases the grinding and polishing necessary to achieve a non-linear surface adds a significant amount of extra time and labor to the manufacturing process. Moreover, since the raw materials of a magnet can be quite costly, grinding away material in a manner that essentially destroys the excess material is highly undesirable.
Therefore, what is desired is a machining method which allows the initial machining cuts to closely approximate the finished shape of magnets even where curved, or spline-shaped surfaces are required.